Vaghe Stelle - Abstract Speed + Sound

Vaghe Stelle - Abstract Speed + Sound
Like Zomby or Actress, Vaghe Stelle makes episodic, provisional tracks that weave together multiple strands of electronic music to create something distinct. With OTT rave synths and spindly, staccato rhythms, the Italian's work is firmly on the contemporary bass music spectrum, but—as might be expected of a producer who is also one-third of arty experimentalists One Circle—it's layered with chewy detail. You could compare him to early Rustie or Fatimi Al Qadiri's ethereal grime, but Vaghe Stelle takes his own peculiar route to that sound.

The producer born Daniele Mana created Abstract Speed + Sound while thinking about how our bodies exist in the digital realm. There is a clearly alienating atmosphere to "Tempo" and its eerie choral interjections, and the elusive, sweetly chattering voices that reverberate through "Multiple Concentric Hexagon" feel as if they're lost in binary code. These murky tracks are, in part, tapestries of heavily processed vocal samples, which, as well as being nebulous (is it a synth or a sample?), give Mana's music a disembodied quality.

Stripped of intellectual context, however, Abstract Speed + Sound resonates for purely sonic reasons. The East Asian jungle vibe of "Out" is beautiful, and his use of rhythm is fascinating. Mana deploys grime's machine-gun beats and elements of dancehall and footwork, but in contrast to his more fluid contemporaries, his methods are gritty and visceral. Meanwhile, his enormous warped synths—reminiscent of New Order at their most pompous, or major label hip hop's trap-influenced grandstanding—are, by turns, exhilarating and bordering on bad taste. Abstract Speed + Sound ultimately presents ideas that Mana has yet to fully realize, but his voice remains singular.